ABSTRACT
Tokhtamysh at Tartarup on the Terek. The Os had survived in the mountains and had, indeed, descended into the central districts of upper Georgia. Their clan structure, dominated by noble families, had little in common with the wilder and freer communities of the Chechens and lngushes who tolerated no first men among equals. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Kabardans - Circassians whose social structure has been compared to that of a military order - had moved from the Crimea along the line of the Kuban and assumed the ascendancy formerly enjoyed by the Golden Horde. In the third quarter of the century, when Temryuk made his alliance with Ivan IV, the Kabardan princes were still comparative newcomers, threatened by the Nogays and the Crim Tartars - successor states of the Golden Horde - and by the rather powerful Shevkal of Tarku. Hence, perhaps, as Baddeley has observed, is partly explained the readiness of the Kabardan princely families to attach themselves to the Tsar.1
